I tried a Marauder . . .

after 20+ years of shooting, tuning, collecting springers. I only owned the Marauder for a couple of months before I gave up on it. I just couldn't see the attraction of the PCP. Fortunately, I borrowed a SCUBA tank and soon realized that SCUBA is inadequate. You need more than a 3,000 psi tank to feed these rifles. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of a $300 SCBA tank.

But the main thing was the "snick." Actually, it was the LACK of the "snick." With a good spring gun, everything operates with precision. Safeties, breech lock, cocking, triggers . . . everything is super precise and parts click into place with a "snick." Outside my prior professional experience as a photographer, when I worked with high-end Nikons and Leicas, there have been very few times in my life where I could work with things made as precisely as my spring guns.

I realize that had my PCP experience been in the form of an Air Arms or one of the better built rifles, my reaction would probably be different. But it wasn't. It was with a Benjamin. Don't get me wrong, I love my old Crosman C02 guns but I don't expect them to be more than they are. With the Marauder, all I felt was constant disappointment. Sure the rifle shot fine, had more than enough power and was plenty accurate, but it did not give me the tactile sense of satisfaction that I get from a HW55 or FWB300s.

Precision, simplicity and self-sufficiency are the main things that attract me to airguns. PCPs offer none of that. Springers have it to the extreme.

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